Structures for holding a balustrade panel of a passenger conveyor, in particular, structures for fixing a glass are required to grip the glass with a sufficient force so as to prevent displacement of the glass due to the gravity, passengers' tampering, or collision of objects.
As a glass holding structure that satisfies the above-mentioned requirement, there are known a structure for causing an axial force of a bolt to directly act as a pressing force through an intermediation of a plate, and a structure for amplifying the pressing force on the wedge principle.
The first structure for pressing the plate may be simple but is required to cause the axial force of the bolt to act on the balustrade panel at a right angle, to thereby generate a necessary gripping force. As a result, there arise drawbacks such as increase in device size, material cost, and weight, and tightness in the internal space.
As the second structure, on the other hand, a structure disclosed in, for example, JP 07-17337 B is known. This structure attains light-weighting and space saving, but the shape of each component is relatively complex, and hence it is difficult to manufacture the component by sheet metal working. Further, a relatively accurate surface is required to slide the component, and hence the manufacturing method is limited to metal casting that involves machining, or to injection molding (die casting). As a result, there arise drawbacks such as increase in processing cost and investment in molds.
In contrast, JP 07-25572 A discloses a wedge-type glass holding structure manufactured by aluminum extrusion molding, which is lower in cost of molds than the die casting (generally 1/10 to 1/20).
However, the extrusion molding is limited to manufacture of components having two-dimensional shapes, and hence it is difficult to obtain a structure for generating a sufficient holding force. In actuality, the structure disclosed in JP 07-25572 A is more difficult in exerting a sufficient gripping force than the structure disclosed in JP 07-17337 B.